Entry 3: Enhancing writing instruction for future learners

Richard and Hawkes (2006) argue that teachers need to make explicit connections between reading and writing by focusing on components of author’s craft. Focusing in on one strategy across the reading, writing, and letter parts of a lesson helps students link the isolated components of balanced literacy.

As I start to look at my own teaching practices and I am noticing that I have put a larger focus on teaching reading strategies because of how many novel studies I have integrated into the school year. I am a 6^th grade special education teacher in a 6:1:1 setting for students who struggle with emotional/behavioral disabilities. The skills of my students usually differ greatly from one another. This year in my class of 5 students, I have a child reading at a Fountas and Pinnell Level Z equivalent to a high school reading level sitting next to a child who is a level K (Grade 2). In the past, I have gotten very caught up with students responding to literature through writing prompts/questions. As I progress through this class, I know where I will make essential changes to help students become better writers. I will incorporate the six traits of writer’s craft into my instruction. According to Tompkins, the six traits of writer’s craft include ideas, organization, word choice, fluency, conventions, and presentation. Currently I teach ideas and organization well. I read aloud often and offer students an opportunity to engage with different types of text. The mentor texts I select have well developed ideas that demonstrate the trait that I’m focusing on. I also focus a lot on organization and do a lot of work around drawing diagrams (BME structure), collecting effective leads/endings, and paragraph building. These 2 traits are easy to focus on with my students because I have a lot of diversity in terms of skill in my 6^th grade special education classroom. I want to focus more on word choice and fluency with my future students. I am absolutely adopting Tompkin’s (2016) “dollar words” in my classroom. Students need to learn that good writer’s use words effectively. I plan to provide my students with mentor texts where they can explore word choice. Using reading to make themselves better writers. Rickards and Hawes (2006) highlight quite a few minilessons that would have benefited my students in the past. I could have tied in the minilesson “What words or phrases grab your attention?” in my zoo research project. During this project, students researched whether zoos were a good or bad thing. They collected evidence to make a claim and wrote argumentative essays. This specific lesson would have tied in great because their work is meant to be well researched and persuasive. 

References 

Rickards, D. & Hawes, S. (2006).  Connecting reading and writing through author’s craft. The Reading Teacher, 60(4), 370-373.